Six months ago today, Dave Portnoy made a brilliant hire

Here’s the scene: It’s a warm, crystal clear day in early April. I’m on my way to Tupelo, Mississippi after picking up a 3-piece catfish dinner at a gas station because that’s what I do every day. I watch my three boys during the day and when my wife gets home from work, I head to Tupelo to do my three jobs.

But this isn’t a normal day. It’s April 10, 2019. Exactly six months ago. That’s when Barstool fans, a MyBookie livestream and Dave Portnoy turned my life upside down.

At 3 p.m., I received a DM on Twitter that surprised me. It was from Dave. And that’s when shit changed forever.

First, a little backstory. Not even 24 hours earlier, I was fed to a tank full of angry, pissed off sharks. You know most of the facts of this story. You know I was doing a side job for MyBookie, which was embroiled in a feud it started with Dave. You know that Barstool fans inundated my normally sleepy show and I was under the gun with 1,000 people calling me a squid and making fun of my haircut.

You know what happened next. I withstood a 14-minute barrage from Barstool fans and lived to tell about it. If you haven’t seen the original video, here it is.

Immediately, my future Barstool coworkers were huge fans of mine.

Less than 24 hours later, Dave blogged that he should hire me. He then DM’ed me and set up a call.

So, on the side of I-22 in Itawamba County in Mississippi, I pulled to the side of the road, took a 92-second phone call from Dave and took the job.

To my credit, I asked Dave for 24 hours so I can explain it to my friend who got me the MyBookie job, but Dave rightfully said it’s best if we go ahead and do it. So I did. The friend called me a piece of shit and hasn’t talked to me since.

I was hired at about 4:15 central. I agreed to a one-year deal and I am fairly certain Dave immediately began the countdown in his head until the day the year was up and he could flush me down the toilet. But I’m an extraordinary turd. I’m now on a 3-year deal.

It was a surreal afternoon. I waited for about 5 hours before I told my wife. I didn’t know how my bold decision to change every fucking thing about our life was going to go over. But she’s team B-Walk. She jumped onboard and now, she’s sitting over in Jersey having playdates with women who are much richer than us and she nods in agreement to their terrible stories while they all ignore our kids. In six months, I’ve gone from being a stay-at-home father of four who pieced together side jobs to maintain a mortgage to being a resident of New Jersey with 4 kids and 6 puppies.

I’m not an idiot. I knew I was hired as a stunt. But Dave didn’t know what he had. So I started busting my ass and working as hard as I could. Now, I have 3 shows on Barstool.

People ask me why I uprooted my family to move to the NYC area to work my dick off for Barstool. My answer? I grinded for a long time as a sports writer, podcaster and blogger piecing together a living. And out of dumb luck, I was handed the opportunity of a lifetime to work at a badass, growing company. And what did I have to do? Just be myself.

I’d have been a fucking idiot to turn that down. I know opportunity when I see it. These days, the same Barstool fans support me and make fun of my haircut.

So thank you Dave and Erika Nardini for hiring me. Thank you, wife, for not leaving me. Thank you, MyBookie for pissing off Dave in the first place.

Happy six-month anniversary to me. Well-deserved, sir. Well-Deserved.